Is Apple, too, an open source video codec "AV 1" really can take the position of the industry standard?

Open source video codec driven led by Google and NetflixAV1"Has a higher compression rate than the current mainstream" HEVC (H.265) ", licensing fee is scheduled to be free, and Apple is expected to finally be adopted, so in the near future It is expected to become the standard of video codec. However, "It is not that easy for AV1 to take over the hegemony of the video codec," he said, providing a movie distribution serverharmonicPointed out.

Apple Backs AV1: What Does This Mean for the Future of Video Codecs
https://blog.harmonicinc.com/apple-backs-av1-what-does-this-mean-for-the-future-of-video-codecs/

In 2018 Apple joined the Alliance for Open Media (AOM), which develops the AV1 codec. It is obvious that its purpose is to use AV1 in the future, and as Apple's support for AV1 became clear, the expectation that AV1 will become an industry standard video codec is increasing more and more.

harmonic points out that Apple decided AV1 support is a matter of course. First, since YouTube encodes UHD movies such as 4K with VP9, ​​it can not decode with Apple terminal. It is certain that Apple will not want to create a similar situation in the future when the leading role becomes AV1. Also, streaming distribution Netflix has announced a policy to switch to AV1 as AV1 becomes available, and if Apple supports Netflix content in the future, AV1 support will be mandatory. If AppleOTTIf you would like to provide services that conflict with Netflix, it is not wise to support HEVC only and truncate AV1, harmonic says.


It also points out that harmonic has excessive expectation to say "AV1 myth" about AV1 which is considered to be an industry standard with the support of Google, Netflix, Firefox, Amazon, Apple, etc. . AOM claims that "AV1 is 25% to 35% better in terms of compression ratio in the same image quality as HEVC," but verification by an independent organization has not been done yet.IBCIn the exhibition which compares AV1 and HEVC at 2017 side by side, the video quality evaluation "VMAF"In the evaluation at the same bit rate, AV1 is obviously inferior in some scenes, and it seems that the possibility that the performance is excessively appealing in terms of image quality is not zero.

Also, harmonic points out that the spread of terminals supporting AV1 is important. One of the most important elements in video codecs is the support status of decode terminals. Hardware decoders are installed in common OTT-using terminals such as smartphones, tablets, and STBs. AV1 decoder is far more complicated than HEVC decoder, it takes at least two years to develop a hardware decoder, AV1 will sweep the market by 2020 The situation that I will do is not expected to come.


AV1 is a royalty-free feature that does not charge license fee, but from the point of view of users who actually use the contents provided by the service, it is important to compare the total cost of the AV1 playback environment including the decoder Harmonic points out that it will come. If the manufacturing cost of AV1's hardware encoder is extremely high, terminals that can support AV1 will be limited to only those that are relatively expensive, which will hamper spread.

Also, we should consider "encoding cost". At the time of article writing, the reference model of AV1 is 100 times slower than the optimized HEVC encoder, so the encoder complexity is expected to be about 10 times the HEVC. Harmonic points out that broadcasting stations and streaming service providers may stay at HEVC if the encoding cost is too high.

"AV1 faces a number of obstacles in the future, harmonic expects that the impact of AV1 will not appear before 2020," during which the patent pool that manages patents is largely divided into three groups The HEVC camp also has room to improve the situation. Even though there are many voices saying "Next-generation standards are determined by AV1", harmonic expects that the battle between AVE and HEVC and others will continue to heat up more and more.